


When Campaigns Go Wrong

by gracethescribbler



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Brothers, Friendship, Gen, Platonic Relationships, Prompt Fill, Sick Character, Sick Rex, Sickfic, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:46:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23192650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracethescribbler/pseuds/gracethescribbler
Summary: Rex gets sick on a campaign and doesn't deal with it like he should. Cody's freaked out. For @angelwars11 on tumblr.
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody & CT-7567 | Rex
Comments: 3
Kudos: 115





	When Campaigns Go Wrong

**Author's Note:**

> From a Tumblr request from @angewars11: Hello👋🏼 I'm here with a fanfic request. SW: The CW. Captain Rex is helping his men take new cargo and supplies out of the ships, he felt fine the day before but last night he felt strange, especially his chest. Which hurt. While Rex was checking the new crates he felt a twang of pain and grimaced. He left the cargo bay in pain and retreats to his bunk, however he realizes he needs help because he felt sick (nausea) Cody is called and he comforts his brother. (Fever, angst and brotherly love)
> 
> I've adjusted this a little, and it took me a long time to get to it, but it's here now. Ironically, no, I did not get the request recently and actually wrote most of it before the virus was a problem too.

Clones don’t get sick. It’s an old saying, from Kamino days, and is true more often than not. When pressed, the explanation had been that Jango had been a particularly healthy man to begin with - aside from an allergy to red moon peppers - and the Kaminoans had taken care to enhance things like metabolism, immune system efficiency, and endurance. They had to be able to keep up with their Jedi Generals, and Jedi don’t get sick either. (So people say.)

So Rex blames his aching chest and sore throat and niggling cough on tiredness and a hard hit he’d taken from a droid, even though as their campaign on Dagobah wears on, more and more of the battalion have been getting sick. The swamp, damp and dark and crawling with snakes and frogs and far more suspect creatures in the bogs, has done more damage than their skirmishes with the Separatists have. Kix suspects an unfamiliar virus - they’ve mostly stopped marching, and along the road they’ve set up a straggling camp, in the middle of which is their field hospital. Barely-clean cots, piles of emergency blankets donated from everyone’s packs, all the medical equipment carefully quarantined in a tent, kept in boxes on a table away from the ground. Kix won’t let anyone near his field hospital, to try to keep the sickness from spreading. Every last one of them seems to have trench foot, Rex included, and by now there’s not a damn thing they can do about it - they don’t exactly have clean socks, there’s nowhere to dry off, and they certainly don’t have sonic showers. Kix prescribes a healthy dose of just think of something, but at this point Rex thinks their best cure will be leaving here as soon as possible.

General Skywalker has requested that they be replaced by an immunized battalion - Kix sends a report back on the virus and what he believes it is, with blood samples - but there’s no guarantee that anyone will be able to come.

He and Rex do what they can, being part of almost every patrol, taking men on scouting and hunting forays, and making plans. As more of the battalion falls sick, they have stayed healthy, so they take on more and more duties in the meantime. Anakin keeps telling Rex he should rest, and Rex keeps telling him _I will if you will,_ and they're stuck in an uncomfortable stalemate. Rex isn't sure how long he'll be able to brush off Kix's demands that he rest and let someone else take over, but he intends to push as long as he can, hopefully until they're shipped back to Coruscant.

He collapses two days after Coruscant confirms they're sending backup. He doesn't call it “collapsing,” though; Kix does, later, after Jesse has hauled Rex to the field hospital and Rex has gotten his feet back under him and snapped that he can damn well walk on his own, and he's just fine, thank you. "Sir," Jesse says, carefully, although that doesn't stop Rex from leveling a narrow glare at him, "you just… lost your balance for no reason and seemed to be having trouble breathing and I thought-"

"You _thought?"_ Rex snaps, tucking his arms behind his back.

"Sit the _hells_ down," Kix says, so fierce that Rex almost complies before stopping himself – he has some pride left, after all. "You collapsed on patrol and you thought you'd just brush past it and get back out there? Not on my watch.”

“I did not _collapse,”_ Rex says, but his throat constricts on the last word and his argument is undermined by a fit of coughing that feels as if it’s going to tear up his throat, and he clenches his fists and barely notices Kix pushing him back toward a cot until he’s suddenly sitting down. It’s too much of a relief. He takes a deep, shuddering breath and pretends that his chest isn’t too tight to let him breathe easy.

Kix won’t let go of his arm, just holds onto him and leans over to grab a canteen of water, a bottle of pills, and a syringe from his personal medkit, which seems to be getting emptier and emptier. Rex grits his teeth and tells himself not to be impatient, although he still wants to shrug off Kix’s hand, and he takes the pills he’s offered and winces as Kix presses the syringe to the inside of his forearm. It’s to get him to sleep, Kix says, which Rex wants to protest on principle, but he ends up drifting off all the same, despite the coughs that shake him all through.

He only wakes up fitfully, on an off, for a long and indeterminable amount of time. When he wakes up, he’s too tired to play at being healthy – he just curls up and coughs and hopes he’ll go back under again soon. A small part of him knows that’s probably a bad sign, but being awake is damp and hot and miserable and painful, and it hurts to breathe.

Finally, then, once he wakes up feeling more lucid, comfortable, and it takes him a moment to realize that he’s not in his blacks anymore, isn’t sweating on a cot on Dagobah but is staring at the white ceiling of a real medbay, in clean sleepclothes and under a clean sheet. He still feels too hot, and his chest burns, but both feelings have eased and there isn’t a cough clawing at the back of his throat yet.

He gets his arm under him and carefully pushes himself to sit partly upright, and a hand settles on his shoulder, firm but not stopping him, and he turns.

Cody’s sitting by him, in his armor, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Hey,” he says, warmly. “If you’re trying to get out of bed, I’m gonna have to tie you down.”

“I’m not stupid,” Rex answers, amused, adjusts the pillow on the bunk to prop behind his shoulders and rubs his face. “How long am I stuck here?”

Cody ignores his question, and instead gives him a glare so fierce and disapproving that Rex feels a cadet-like urge to apologize and ask what it is he did wrong. “You’re the stupidest damn idiot I’ve ever known,” Cody retorts, sharply. “Kix told me you wouldn’t report to medical, just kept running around acting like you’re _invincible.”_

“I wasn’t-”

“What if you’d gotten yourself shot, you _asshole,”_ Cody snaps, shoving Rex’s shoulder a little and then letting go of him, and Rex sees a tinge of lingering fear in his brother’s eyes before he gets himself locked down again, expression tightening to a casual, teasing smile. “I thought- Gods, Rex, why do you have to be so stubborn?”

“Don’t lecture me,” Rex says, not harshly, though. “You’re just as stubborn as I am.” A cough scratches at his throat, and he turns away from Cody, tries to contain the coughing to a few strangled noises, but it ends up being a prolonged fit of coughing and Cody is rubbing his back by the time he’s able to relax again. Cody sighs, gets up and leaves to come back with a glass of water, helps Rex drink some, and Rex is too tired to argue against him doing it.

“I was fine.” Rex rubs his jaw, despite knowing it’s a doomed argument. He knows Cody won’t believe him, because Rex isn’t even trying to lie as well as he could. “I needed to help with patrols, I could just leave everything to General Skywalker.”

“You could have died,” Cody says. He’s staring at Rex, implacable, frustrated, and Rex frowns, although it’s too hard to argue. He knows he’d pushed himself too far, and even if he wanted to argue more, he can see that Cody’s upset enough that it wouldn’t help. “Rex, you all scared the shit out of me. We came to get you and I thought- Kriff, _ori’vod,_ it’s been a while.”

Rex looks down, sighing and trying to swallow his pride enough to apologize. He knows that if he were in the same position, if Cody had come home looking like death, barely awake, pushing himself past his limit for nearly no reason, he’d be angry too, and afraid. And he’d be lecturing Cody for not taking care of himself. So, determinedly, although it’s frustrating, he says, “Alright. I know. I’m sorry, I should have taken a break sooner and listened to Kix. I just- I wanted to make sure everything was taken care of, alright? Give me a break.”

Cody scowls, but not so fiercely, and sighs. “Alright,” he says, appeased, looking down. Then, after another moment, he looks up, almost shame-faced, says, “Just- I think you should know, I really don’t want to lose you, Rex.”

Rex folds his hands, tightly, doesn’t trust himself to do more than nod, for a moment. There are things they both know and never say, about how hard it is to lose, about how there are some things they would never trust to anyone but each other, about how after three years of war and all the training before that, there are some people it would just hurt too much to lose. But they haven’t talked about it, and Rex regrets scaring his brother enough to get this admission from him.

“I know,” Rex answers, finally, swallowing. “You’re not gonna.” Cody just nods, looks away, and Rex reaches over and shoves his shoulder. “Lighten up, Codes, I’m doing fine and so are you. I even get sick leave.”

“Yeah, you’re stuck here for another week.” Cody grins, reluctantly. “If they catch you out of bed, I’m gonna sedate you myself, and then beat your ass when you get out of here.”

Rex laughs, which hurts his chest, but he doesn’t mind. It feels a little better now, away from the uncomfortable truth. They can talk about that another time, when Rex feels himself and they can work out that kind of shit in a spar or practice range. It’s too hard to think about that now, sitting in the medbay, with Cody twisting his fingers together quietly and trying not to look anxious.

Even though he feels bad for Cody, though, he can’t keep from making fun of his brother later when Cody insists on bringing him soup for dinner from the mess, calls him a mother hen, which about loses him his dinner altogether.


End file.
